By: Barbara Zigah
With market players biding their time as they await the U.S. non-farms payroll data which will be released later in the trading day, the Euro struggled to gain any footing in Asian trading. Economists expect that the U.S. Labor Department will report that 122,000 new jobs were created in November, and that the unemployment rate will be unchanged at 9.0%; the earlier released ADP data portended a positive outcome, but its never a certainty that the U.S. report will trend exactly the same.
The European Central Bank yesterday hinted that they would consider taking on a larger role in the crisis, provided that the tighter budgetary measures which are being outlined by France and Germany are actually accepted and implemented. France’s and Germany’s leadership will be meeting next week to outline their proposal ahead of the December 9th E.U. summit. Many view that meeting as a do-or-die for the Eurozone.
Wednesday’s move by the major central banks which helped to hoist the Euro has already been forgotten for the most part, and traders are only waiting on today’s data to decide whether or not to take profits. As reported at 11:33 a.m. (JST) in Tokyo, the Euro was trading against the U.S. Dollar at $1.3468, slightly improved from the $1.3457 in late New York trading, but well off the week’s peak of $1.3534 which was struck on Wednesday.